The ‘Patient Zero’ of Transgender Kids

What we can learn from the tragedy of David Reimer.

David Reimer drove to a grocery store parking lot on a Tuesday in 2004, raised a shotgun whose barrel he had methodically sawed off that morning, and ended his life with a blast to the head. Years earlier, he had become a kind of “patient zero” for transgender kids and struggled with the trauma for the rest of his life.

The tragedy that affected Reimer i…